Jim Seip: Revolution manager Mark Mason has a knack for rebuilding

York Revolution manager Mark Mason throws during batting practice in April 2013. Mason has gone through several rebuilding projects with the Revs, even back when he was the pitching coach and needed to rebuild an entire bullpen. (File — Daily Record/Sunday News)

Three years ago York Revolution manager Mark Mason inherited an aging three-time playoff team. Oh, people like to point to the pennant flags hanging in the power alley above left field. But the key word about the team Mason inherited is "aging."

Find an old team in the Atlantic League, and chances are it's in trouble.

Players can either break down, or life happens. Sometimes players decide they can't live on a $1,800-a-month salary — or they decide they no longer want to. Perhaps they want to start a family and realize they would prefer a 9-to-5 career without the crazy travel and demanding hours. In the case of the two-time league champion York Revolution: Life happened.

First basemen Ian Bladergroen (2010) and Chris Nowak (2011-12) started families. Onetime Atlantic League Player of the Year Scott Grimes (2010-12) began a coaching career. Pitcher Matt DeSalvo (2010-11) hopped a flight to Taiwan for a season before becoming a teacher. Shortstop Chuck Jeroloman (2010), a new father during the franchise's first championship run, became a Division I college coach. Reliever Sean Stidfole (2010-11) began his career outside of baseball.

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Those are some of the best players in club history. And they all walked out the door.

Mason had a massive rebuild situation on his hands.

And how long did it take for York to return to playoff contention?

Try one year. One year. The club finished 10 games under .500 last year, just one win from posting the fourth-best record in baseball. It wasn't a year to remember, but it was far from a bottom-out season.

Mason looked at his roster before this season and wanted a couple things, more team speed and better defense.

• He picked up starter Alain Quijano from the American Association, a pitcher with no affiliated experience but someone Mase knew from his time in the Frontier League.

• He signed Matt Neil, a guy who stopped en route to Revs' spring training in Virginia because the Rays had signed him. When the Rays released him later in the year, the Revs welcomed him back.

• He made certain to sign local big-league talents, Anthony Lerew and Mark Hendrickson.

• He picked up Justin Greene, a player Mason had no connection to other than Greene's reputation. ("I just followed him, he was Player of the Year in Double-A, and he wasn't playing. I had no connection with him, other than he was the type of player I'd like to get.")

• He found a way to sign Sean Smith and Wilson Valdez, Atlantic League guys who added speed.

• And he decided to bring back the right type of guys to the York clubhouse, like Chad Tracy and Johan Limonta.

And that's not even taking into account all the players Mason tried to land in the winter that never panned out.

"All the irons in the fire have to be players you want, and the first guys that commit you bring in — because you only go after players you want," Mason said. "What you don't know is who will be around? Who is going to be healthy? Who is going to be signed (by major league organizations)? Who is going to perform? What you have to do is put your team together and go from there."

This should probably not come as a big shock for those who realize Mason is a man who, when he served as Revs pitching coach, needed to help rebuild an entire bullpen in one half of a season and accomplished the task in time for a 2010 league championship. In 2011, the rebuild went a step further. York needed to rebuild a starting rotation and tweak its bullpen, and Mason helped the Revs do it during a season when they finished one game out of a first-half title and ran away with a second-half championship and won a league title.

The old college coach can still recruit.

Heading into Saturday's game, the Revs sit even with the Lancaster Barnstormers for first place in the Freedom Division with about a week to go in the first half.

Mason has been doing this since 2002, assembling teams, finding players. It's a job he enjoys out of the season. But it's a job that becomes more difficult during the season because the talent pool of available players decreases.

He won't win an award for all this legwork, for sending out all the emails and text messages, for leaving all those voicemails in February. But he's given his team and the franchise something more valuable than a plaque to hang on the wall — he's given them a chance to play for a playoff spot.

Jim Seip is a reporter for the Daily Record/Sunday News. Reach him at 771-2025.